


The Edge of an Ember

by song_of_orpheus



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: All Your Faves Are Trans, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fauntleroy is only mentioned, One use of a cigarette which disappears because i don't know what I'm doing, Other, Some Swearing, angry tears
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-07-12 05:55:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15989030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/song_of_orpheus/pseuds/song_of_orpheus
Summary: Glorieux enjoys the roofs of Paris - they're secret places almost, places the gentlefolk of the city never dare to gaze upon properly, places where they can scream and cry about their love without consequence. Gueulemer joins them, and the air turns colder with him there.





	The Edge of an Ember

It’s a day that feels like the first bite of an apple; harsh and musty in its own sweetness, with a sharp freeze that sews through the spine. Glorieux imagines their bones stretched out beneath their skin, cut together with fine wires like the ancient creatures at museums. Autumn has always made them feel so old, much older than they are.

 

The rooftop they’re standing on is bleak, to say the least. They can admire that. Around them is a city full of gargoyles, eyes ashen and faded with age, wings resting heavy on the air. It’s the sort of city they build dreams out of, but so much wearier than most people realise. The creature of the night they are, Glorieux enjoys watching it sway under the weight of all its souls. Their roof is flat and dirty and plain. It’s all that Glorieux needs.

 

It’s raining, of course. They don’t mind that; they like the way the water knits over their hands and face, and they like the fake kind of warmth it brings.

 

Gueulemer’s footsteps announce his presence before he ever needs to. Softened by the rain, they shift across the concrete like waves at midnight. Glorieux can feel him stand behind them at the edge. They won’t look at him, eyes too focused on the scar of the skyline, but some part of their periphery notices the bruises spat over his knuckles.

 

“Touch me and I’ll slice your skin off, Gueulemer,” they say, and run their fingers over the stone beside them. It’s rough, and tells of night-times and bodies dragging themselves across the asphalt, dirt under fingernails and smudged beneath eyes, skin bruising something softer than it should be, plump with tenderness.

 

Gueulemer sits, dragging his heels on the ground with a clatter of stone. “What’s got you riled up?” he asks, and they’re grateful he doesn’t try to look at them. He stares out at the blank sky the same as them. Rain catches like lightning on the shaggy mess of his hair and makes it curl. They have an unplaceable impulse to reach out and trace a finger around the swirls.

 

Their hoop earrings flash bright, far too bright for such a sunless day, and they run a hand beneath the brace of their trousers before answering.

 

“I want to burn something,” they say, breath licking the shadow of their voice into life. “I want to burn the world, Gueule.”

 

They know they don’t use nicknames often, and that Gueulemer picks up on it. He’s not good at body language or tones the way that Claquesous might be, but he knows them well enough. His presence is large and it warms the frozen marrow of their bones from the inside out. Their teeth taste like cotton.

 

Gueulemer doesn’t speak. He’s far from a _quiet_ person, but most of that comes from the noise of his presence itself, from the storm clouds that permeate his flesh and ache around his skin at all times. Without looking at him directly, Glorieux shifts sharply and takes in the cuts rippling over his knuckles. There’s a larger line on his cheek too, like a prophecy, and they suddenly have an image of incense and muttered prayers, shuddering figures wrapped in veils.

 

That’s ridiculous. Gueulemer is certainly no believer of anything. He’d swallow gods whole if he found them.

 

They sit for a few moments of meaningless time, not looking at each other but knees almost touching. Finally, Gueulemer speaks again: “I’d hand you a lighter but it’s Montparnasse’s second favourite and he’d cut my tongue out if I did.”  


Glorieux scowls before they can stop themselves, and their face turns as sharp as the sky – piercing cheeks and tawny beige skin with murky eyes. They avoid Gueulemer’s gaze still, fingers sharpening into talons on the roof edge.

 

“So what? Why shouldn’t he?” Their tongue bites at their teeth. “Why shouldn’t he hurt _me_ after everything that happened?”

 

The rain has stopped. Glorieux’s cheeks are lined with water, and it falls and breaks apart in the air like chalk. The short splinters of their hair glitter and spark. It’s one of those times where Gueulemer thinks Glorieux doesn’t look _extant_ any more; they’ve curled up into a sculpture he doesn’t recognise, into looped writing that arches along the bleak outlines of their wrists, their throat, their spine.

 

“No-one blames you for that,” Gueulemer replies, tone low and eerily even. There’s a kind of sharpness fractured in his jaw.

 

Glorieux’s lips twist again into brambles, and they don’t try to stop themselves this time. “Maybe you don’t. Maybe you don’t care enough to.”

 

At once, Gueulemer is cold. Glorieux keeps talking, words pulled out of their chest on a wire, strung out like dead birds, eyes glinting. All that presence Gueulemer has is gone – he’s shifted away from them, but they can’t stop talking.

 

“You don’t blame me for fucking up so badly I went to jail because you don’t give one that I went to jail. Everything – everything, you know, fucking everything – that I was was just nothing to you because I was gone and you couldn’t use my knives any more.” Breath short, dreams overlapping at their vision. Their eyes, their eyes bruise red again, streaming with choking sobs. Everything and everything decays around them. “I heard _nothing_ from you. Not a single fucking word in years.”

 

Gueulemer is gone. Snatched away by the unbreathing air, he stands away from them, glacial. Glorieux realises that all they want to burn, everything they’re trying to destroy right now is themselves.

 

“Maybe that’s fine for you, but this shit was everything to me, Gueule. You were-” Their voice crashes down before they even finish the word. It feels like their body tries to rip itself apart with sobbing, like stringing out their heartache between buildings for pigeons and people to peck at. They’re glad they’re so high up. Parisians never dare to look up.

 

Time disappears into smoke between their teeth. They know that Gueulemer has left, gone somewhere downstairs probably. Not that either of them lives here. They try not to look for the place he was standing and fail far too quickly. Tears tear at Glorieux’s skin. They imagine themselves as something crimson, something angry and vengeful, something the children of the city would be taught to avoid. They don’t _feel_ fearsome right now.

 

Glorieux’s words have run dry and hot, and the air burns them too. They don’t know how long they’ve been here, but with a low keening like a bow dragged across cello strings, they curl in on themselves, mind scratching between images of chains and the ground below and rose thorns – oh, the roses.

 

 

They’re nineteen and tugging at Gueulemer’s cuff, dragging him through the botanical gardens. A vision in technicolour opens up in front of them like a dreamscape, but it’s tender in a way that feels more grounded than most of their lives are. He’s groaning, face softer than it is now, and there’s a nursery rhyme drifting in their head. He’s got such dark eyes.

 

Air flutters between them – this was before they ever kissed, before Glorieux learned how to count the love in Gueulemer’s heart, before they learned the names of all the hawks that circle his ribcage, before they learnt how to dance, together, far too early in the morning in a stranger’s kitchen. Laughter spits at their throat and they can’t help dissolving into bubbles every few moments.

 

Technically, they’re hiding out after a job. Fauntleroy says no-one ever bothers to disturb people in the flower gardens. Glorieux is pretty sure that’s just an excuse to visit, but that’s not important right now.

 

Soon, they’re hidden from sight in the heart of the gardens, wrapped up in petals and the poetry of greenery and each other’s eyes. Gueulemer is still mumbling curses at the flowers, until his voice breaks as he does so, and then he curses the testosterone shots instead. Glorieux tries to remind him that it wasn’t their idea to come here, either, between low giggles before Gueulemer stops short in the middle of a breath.

 

Wonder blurs the shadows of his eyes brighter. He’s gazing into the heart of a flower – a white rose, a little too old to be perfect – and he sees the universe inside of it. Gueulemer’s not a creative by any means, but his breath becomes softer and he talks about gold and death and fury and stars and Glorieux realises how perfectly in love they are.

 

And so they run away just after that, away from Gueulemer and everyone else and Gueulemer. They go to jail a little later. By the time they’ve returned, they don’t laugh any more.

 

 

Gueulemer sits down again. Glorieux looks up, slowly, and wonders if he ever really left. They’ve no idea how much time has passed. He takes a cigarette from his boot and lights it. The flame is sharp and he clicks it open and closed noisily like the blare of a train coming into the station.

 

“You know full well we couldn’t just waltz in there to talk to you-”

 

“You fucking could’ve,” they breathe out stickily. “Even if not, you didn’t send _one_ word.”

 

Gueulemer cracks apart. The lines of his face draw sharply together, then split open wide, pale and angry. A snake cut open at the belly. Ice pours through his skin, and suddenly he – the Hercules, the Jotun – is mutable in a way Glorieux has barely seen before. Suddenly vulnerable.

 

“I tried,” he cries, and his voice is a shadow of what it could be. “You think I didn’t _try_?”

 

It takes a moment for Glorieux’s cheeks to soften, ever so slightly, and when they finally look into Gueulemer’s eyes their gaze is darker and warmer and safer than it has been in years. He’d tried, they realise, he really did; they see it in every crevice of his skin. He’d tried as much as they had.

 

They don’t speak, just keep gazing with lips parted fire red. Burning. Gueulemer looks at their lips, then closes his eyes slowly before he speaks again. There’s a curl hanging at his cheek, pine brown, and it drips with the memory of rainwater.

 

“I missed you all the time, Glorieux.” A breath, shooting through the gap between teeth. “It’s sappy as all hell, but I did.” He won’t say any more. He won’t say what they _should_ say.

 

“Thanks.” Glorieux finds some inner sharpness and carves it into their hands so they’re steady enough, then kisses him hard on the lips. It’s not exactly romantic, but their eyes crush to embers and their skin flares up with lightning, and that’s more than enough for them. Gueulemer takes their shoulders, almost roughly but not quite, and presses them tighter.

 

Words drift away into the mist, unspoken but heard. They’re wrapped around each other tight enough to crush stars, and Glorieux’s heat sparks warmth into Gueulemer until both of them feel okay for a while. Until their hearts blush and dream of opening – Glorieux realises that one day they will.


End file.
